


spreadsheets to make it easy

by jamesiee



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gift Exchange, Gift Giving, M/M, OMGCP Winter Extravaganza, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 16:26:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12891930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesiee/pseuds/jamesiee
Summary: Justin isn’t sure what he expects when he clicks on an email with the subject 'Adopt a Child for the Holidays!', but he’s not that surprised when the link inside brings him to the homepage of a local orphanage. He’s more surprised than he’d like to admit outside of his own head when it’s a link for donating a holiday present to a child rather than actually adopting a kid for the holiday month, but he blames that on the fact that he’s been in a youtube spiral since he got home from work at lunch and has apparently forgotten how to think for himself.There's love in all gifts exchanged, even the little ones.





	spreadsheets to make it easy

**Author's Note:**

> [OMGCP Winter Extravaganza](https://omgcpwinterextravaganza.tumblr.com/); December 1: Gift Exchange 
> 
> Main pairing: Ransom/Holster with one mention of Jack/Bitty
> 
> There's also mention of a panic attack but it's stopped before it really starts, but let me know if you need anything tagged!
> 
> * * *
> 
> completely unbeta'd so any and all mistakes are my own. 
> 
> shoutout to the lovely people of the nanowrimo discord group, who were inspiring the entire month of novemeber and continue to be during december (even as im like two day late with this whOOPS) <3

_It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving._ Mother Teresa 

* * *

 Justin isn’t sure what he expects when he clicks on an email with the subject _Adopt a Child for the Holidays!,_ but he’s not that surprised when the link inside brings him to the homepage of a local orphanage. He’s more surprised than he’d like to admit outside of his own head when it’s a link for donating a holiday present to a child rather than actually adopting a kid for the holiday month, but he blames that on the fact that he’s been in a youtube spiral since he got home from work at lunch and has apparently forgotten how to think for himself.

He eats the sandwich he made for dinner one handed while he skims through the page, looking at the pictures of kids of all ages decked out in holiday reds and greens and blues and whites, smiling or making faces at the camera. The captions on the photos say that they were taken from last year’s party, the first time the orphanage was able to do a holiday party, if the captions are to be believed and Justin hasn’t accidentally opened a virus again by clicking on a link from an unknown source. He doesn’t remember giving out his email address to any orphanages, but then again Holster never remembers his own email address half the time so he uses Justin’s to sign up for things. At least if this is clickbait, it’s probably Holster’s fault time.

The more he clicks through the tabs though, the more Justin thinks this is probably a legit orphanage looking for donations in order to make sure they can purchase enough gifts for the kids who will be there through the holiday season. He’s staring at the bright red ADOPT-A-CHILD button that’s been on the side of every page when Holster kicks open the front door of their apartment.

“Hey, fuck daylight savings,” Holster says in lieu of a greeting. It comes out a little muffled; he’s got a scarf wrapped around the bottom half of his face to fight the wind, but he shucks that off easily enough and throws it on top of the chair they’ve been using as a coat stand since the weather’s turned cold. His jacket goes on top of it. Justin would be more annoyed if they weren’t the same size in outerwear and wore each other’s interchangeably. Holster continues, “It’s like barely 6pm and it feels like midnight, I hate it.” He kicks his shoes at the wall, letting them fall on top of Justin’s neatly placed shoes. That actually annoys him so he glares at Holster until he bends and fixes them.

“And it’s dark and cold, and I had to talk to Margaret about her daughter for fucking ever,” Holster continues talking all the while he passes the kitchen and goes into his room to change out of his work clothes.

“I thought she moved to the third floor?” Ransom asks. He doesn’t bother raising his voice; the walls are thin enough that Holster’ll hear him, even if he closed the door while he changes.

“She caught me in the elevator,” Holster shouts back.

“Shit.”

“Yeah, she’s apparently single, and looking for a nice boy to settle down with and for some strange reason doesn’t appreciate her mother’s matchmaking skills.” Holster comes back into the kitchen, dressed in old Samwell sweatpants and his hair messed from where he probably got caught pushing his head through the sweatshirt he threw on. He ducks in for a kiss before dropping into the seat beside Justin and putting his feet up on Justin’s lap. “You’re a lucky bastard for getting the half day.” He steals the unbitten half of Justin’s sandwich.

“Hey,” Justin says mildly, like he hadn’t put extra mustard on that side for Holster anyways.

Holster just grins and wiggles his toes, digging them into the meat of Justin’s thigh. “Whatcha doing?”

“Thinking about adopting a kid,” Justin replies and it probably says something about them that Holster knows exactly what he means without any context.

“Oh good, you got the email!” Holster drops his feet to the ground so he can sit up straight, and drags his chair closer to Justin’s. “There was a sign up sheet going around this afternoon.”

“When are you going to learn your own email address?” Justin asks, but he tilts the screen so they can both see the happy pictures.

“Whenever you grow out of the email you made in elementary, justin-oh-one-two-three-at-hotmail-dot-com?” Holster elbows Justin and starts clicking through the pages himself. His grin widens on the EVENTS page. “So, they have an option of either sending money so the volunteers can buy the gifts or you can buy something yourself and drop it off.” He drops his sandwich and Justin’s eyes are drawn to the pink of his mouth while he sucks mustard off his fingertips. When they’re clean, he drags the laptop over to his side of the table completely and clicks on the ADOPT-A-CHILD button that Justin’d been staring at before. Holster keeps talking while he fills out the form that loads, typing in his name and Justin’s email address. “I know you’ve got a big project coming up, but if we go this weekend to pick something out, and then we can wrap it and I’ll drop it off on Monday when I have the half day?” He swings his big head over to look at Justin when he finishes, and looks so excited that Justin can really help but lean forward and press a soft kiss to his lips. Holster is always stupidly beautiful when he’s excited about something, be it his newest TV obsession or gift shopping.

“Yeah, okay,” Justin says, when they pull back. Holster knocks their noses together when he leans in for another peck, but then he goes right back to the form.

“How many kids?” He hovers over the drop down menu.

“Two.” They’d never decide on a gift for one kid without an argument in the store otherwise.

“Good call. Boy or girl?”

Justin shrugs and leans his head on Holster’s shoulder and watches him chose the Any option before hitting the submit button on the form. Another window pops up telling them that an email with all the information about the child(ren) they’ve ‘adopted’ will be sent as soon as possible. Justin and Holster are both quiet for a minute—Justin’s enjoying breathing in time with Holster—then Holster turns so Justin, not realizing how much of his weight he’d been leaning on Holster, has to catch himself before he smacks his face into Holster’s chest.

“Wanna have sex before the house gets overrun with children?” Holster asks, wiggling his eyebrows and looking proud of what has to be the worst joke possible, even if the idea of actually adopting a kid with him makes Justin’s insides buzz pleasantly.

“Shut the fuck up,” Justin groans. “Do not make that joke in front of your mother. You’ll break her heart.” He punches Holster in the shoulder, hard.  He closes the laptop and kicks his chair from the table so he can stand up.

“She is baby crazy,” Holster agrees, rubbing at his shoulder. He takes the hand Justin offers though, standing and kissing Justin deeply enough that he can taste the mustard from the sandwich, and then they do make their way to the bedroom, returning the kitchen for a snack sometime later for a snack to go with the new T.V. show Holster wants to show Justin.

Holster wakes up early and excited, only letting Justin go back to sleep when he’s reminded that no store will be open before 8 AM. Justin wakes up again sometime around 10 to a cold bed and has a moment of panic that Holster went to the store without him. He relaxes when he hears a kitchen chair creak against the laminate floor, grateful for the stupidly thin walls. He rolls out of bed and pads to the bathroom, peeing and washing his face and teeth and then goes to find Holster, while shrugs into clean-ish clothes to go shopping in.

Holster’s got Justin’s laptop open in front of him again, and an empty plate full of toast crumbs piled on top of the sandwich plate from yesterday that they forgot to put away and he’s frowning while he stares at the screening, scrolling with a purpose.

“What’re you doing, Holtzy?” Justin asks, smacking a kiss to the top of Holsters head and taking the plates the sink. He gets a bowl down and fills it with Frosted Flakes. He finishes the milk, leaves the carton out so they at least have a small chance remember to buy more while they’re out, and leans against the counter while he eats. He squints at Holster as he waits for an answer to his question.

“They sent the email about the kids. Siblings; a boy and a girl,” Holster says finally. “Andrew’s 13, likes the Bruins, dinosaurs, and those Percy Jackson books that Nursey keeps trying to make you read.” Justin hums through a mouthful of flakes and Holster keeps going. “Penny is 6-and-a-half and really likes soccer and Rey from Star Wars.”

“They sound great,” Justin says when he swallows. “Why do you look so sad?”

Holster breathes out through his nose. “I dunno. I mean, I guess I didn’t realize that our gifts might be the only gifts they get this year.”

According to the clicking Justin did yesterday, these will definitely be the only gifts the kids this year, but he doesn’t think saying so will help so he stays silent.

“I don’t wanna fuck up their holidays,” Holster admits quietly, after he’s been chewing on the words for a while. Justin puts his bowl down and goes over to his boyfriend. From here, he can see that half the laptop screen is open to the Toy-R-Us website while the other half is an excel worksheet. Now’s probably not the time to realize that Holster using spreadsheets outside of work makes him about a hundred times more attractive, so instead Justin crawls into Holster’s laptop, wiggling until Holster works with him and pushes the table back so they both fit. The chair creaks onminously. Justin takes Holster’s face between his hand to look at him seriously. Holster’s hands settle right above Justin’s ass, finding bare skin where his t-shirt has ridden up with the movements, but it takes a minute for Holster to look Justin in the eye.

“Let’s pick out the best gifts we can then, eh?” Justin says.

Holster humpfs a little. “You say that like it’ll be easy.”

“You’ve made a spreadsheet. Step one of making it easy, babe.” Justin presses a kiss to Holster’s nose, and this time feels Holster’s humpf. “Make sure you save it before we go.” He ignores Holster’s grumble, steals another kiss, and swings his legs back over so he can finish his now-soggy cereal.

He gives Holster another half hour of scrolling the Toys-R-Us website before bullying him into real clothes and then into the car. Justin drives, because Holster makes the argument that he needs to study his list and Justin lets Holster get away with it because this is important to him. To both of them, really. He puts up with Holster making them go to the store further from their apartment because it has a better selection apparently, but puts his foot down when Holster tries to backseat drive.

“If you wanted to fucking drive, you should’ve fucking drove,” Justin says, finishing his turn and then reaching over to charlie-horse Holster. There’s less backseat driving after that, but that might be because he’s pulled into the parking lot and it’s much busier than he expected so they both concentrate on looking out for empty parking spots. When the eventually find one, Holster dashes off to nab a cart, though Justin takes over driving it because he figures Holster might be too excited to stick to it once they’re inside.

He’s right, but after a round of the store to “see what they have in stock Rans, c’mon,” Holster sticks close to the cart while Justin it pushes it through every single aisle, eyes wide while Holster narrates the pros and cons of each item on his list every time they find something new.

Somewhere between the Barbies and the Lego sets, Justin wishes that he had made a spreadsheet too. There’s just so much , so many colours and sounds and options and he doesn’t even realize he’s on the edge of a panic attack until Holster pushes his phone into Justin’s hands and tells him to focus on the pros of Rey action figures versus the plush versions for Penny.

“Thanks,” Justin says when he doesn’t have tunnel vision and his ears aren’t ringing anymore. He keeps scrolling through Holster’s spreadsheet, feeling grounded in the columns and rows. It’s not set up exactly like Justin would’ve done it, but it’s working. The overwhelming amount of stuff in the store is made more bearable, knowing that they don’t have to go through all of it to find the best holiday presents for these kids.

“Spreadsheets babe,” Holster replies.

He takes Justin’s hand and they finish going through the store, eventually deciding on a set of mini sticks and an A-to-Z encyclopedia of Dinosaurs for Andrew and the plushy doll of Rey and Starwars colouring book with matching markers for Penny. They only go a little over the amount the Orphanage recommended for each gift because Holster insists that they need Hanukkah and Christmas wrapping paper (“One for each gift for both of them, Rans, duh”) and non-denominational cards, but Justin figures no one will fault them for either.

The rest of the weekend is spent arguing about the best way to wrap the irregular shapes of the boxes, finally ending when they run out of wrapping paper and have to go back to get more so they agree each wrap the gifts for one kid and stop messing with each other’s boxes because “it’s not a competition Holster for god’s sake.” They sit next to each other at the kitchen table again and each write a little message in both of the cards, signing them with their first names. Justin adds a little heart next to his name, and has to shove Holster onto the floor when he giggles and asks why Justin drew a butt.

Holster tries to be smug about getting to go home early on Monday morning when they drive to work together, but he’s too excited about getting to drop the boxes off after that he forgets to rub his half day in Justin’s face when he waves and as he’s leaving at lunchtime.

Justin’s phone rings at 5 that afternoon, screen flashing to the picture he took of Holster caught mid-sneeze during the summer. Justin has done everything he can on his current project until someone in accounting calls him back with more information about an account. He won’t hear anything back from them until tomorrow, so he doesn’t even feel a little bit guilty when he answers his phone while he packs up his bag to go home for the day.

“If you’re calling to brag about your half day, you’re too late. I’m on my way home,” Justin says. He swings his bag over his shoulder and waves to Bonnie as he passes her office on his way to the elevator.

“Rans, they’ve invited us to a party!” Holster’s voice booms in his ear, which means that he’s really excited about something and forgotten he needs to use his inside voice, wherever he is.

Justin steps into the elevator, sticking the phone between his ear and shoulder so he can fix the twist in bag’s strap and presses the button for the ground floor. “Uh… who?”

“The orphanage! They have a Holiday Party every year for the kids and they invite whoever’s bought presents. or donated.”

“Oh yeah?” The elevator stops on the third floor and Margaret steps in, looking like she has something to say to Justin. He twists so she can see he’s on the phone and makes his best sympathetic face when she deflates, but doesn’t actually feel that bad. “When is it?”

“Uhhh, on a weekend?” There a rustling on Holster’s end, like he’s looking through papers. “Oh. Not this weekend, but the one after. Pretty sure Bitty’s cookie day is the Saturday while this is the Sunday so we can do both. I already RSVP’d that we’re going.”

Justin nods a goodbye to Margaret as he gets out of the elevator. “Bro, we can bring cookies for the kids!”

“Exactly!” Holster exclaims. “Now hurry up; I’m double parked and I’m not sure the parking attendant is feeling the holiday spirit now that the sun has been down for hours.”

Justin snorts, but hurries outside to see where Holster has half-assed parked their car in the loading zone. Justin can see his grin as Holster waves to him. The grin gets wider when Justin hangs up on him as he opens the passenger and leans across to give Holster a kiss hello, even though it’s only been hours since he got a kiss goodbye.

Cookies aren’t the only thing that Justin and Holster turn up to the Holiday Party with two weekends later. Bitty sends them with a couple pies and Jack slips them a cheque made out to the orphanage with instructions to give it as a jumpstart for next year’s Holiday party. They’ve even got a couple of extra presents, some jerseys and t-shirts, just in case. The staff member who greets them doesn’t quite know what to do with all of it, but gives them nametags and sends them back into a rec room where there’s a Christmas Tree set up beside a table of brightly coloured gifts. Holster elbows Justin in the side when he spots their mismatched gifts.

“Mine still looks better,” Justin mutters under his breath. He gets an elbow to the stomach for that as they join the other adults and kids milling about the room.

They get directed to a snack table by a serious faced kid who’s balancing a plate with a single brownie on it on top of a place filled with baby carrots and Justin is drawn into conversation with the volunteer in charge of pouring juice while Holster is talked into lifting kids up onto his shoulders and giving them a tour of the room with a view. Justin isn’t sure how long he watches Holster be a human jungle gym but it does something to him every time one of the kids makes Holster belly laugh with something they’ve said. Justin’s just about to get in on the action when Bethenny, the woman in charge of the orphanage, gets everyone’s attention to start the gift giving ceremony.

The kids go sit near the tree while the adults in the room hang around the edges of the room. The volunteers go through the table of presents, calling names and handing each gift to the kid it goes with, with reminders to wait until everyone has their gifts. It turns out the serious faced kid with the carrots and brown is Andrew and the little girl who first convinced Holster she needed to sit on his shoulders “for science” is Penny. They both look pleased with the wrapping jobs, and Justin even catches Andrew staring at the little menorah’s that cover the Hanukkah wrapping paper, before rubbing his thumb over them and smiling. Holster’s grinning too when Justin catches his eye.

When every kid has a present in front of them, Justin braces himself against Holster for the flurry of activity that’s coming. Someone starts a countdown that’s enthusiastically taken up by the younger kids who want to show off their counting skills and at zero, there’s a happy shout and the holiday music that’d been playing in the background is overtaken by the sounds of ripping paper and excited kids.

There’s so much movement that Justin isn’t sure where to look, but an extra loud shout of glee from his left grabs his attention and he doesn’t even try to stop the giant smile he knows he’s wearing when he sees that Penny’s ripped into Holster’s haphazard wrap job of the Rey plush and is hugging her, even as the rest of the gift is still attached to the it. There’s more shouts of “oh cool,” and “check this out!” and one “holy shit!” that has Holster snort so loudly that Justin thinks he might be choking on his tongue as he muffles his laugh in Justin’s shoulder.

Justin is thumping on Holster’s back and doing a shitty job of hiding his own laughter when someone tugs on his other hand. He looks down to see Penny and Andrew in front of him. They’re both holding their gifts, now properly unwrapped, as well as a small square of folded tissue paper.

“Mr. Adam?” Penny says when she sees that she’s got his attention. Holster looks up at his name.

“That’s me,” Holster says. He drops down into a crouch so he’s at Penny’s level.

“Is that Mr. Justin?” she asks, leaning close so she talks right into his ear.  

“Yep, that’s Justin,” Holster replies. Penny nods seriously, and hands Holster the blue tissue paper she’s holding.

“This ‘s for you. Andrew has one for Mr. Justin,” she says.

On cue, Andrew passes the green tissue paper that Justin now notices has his name scrawled on it in big little kid letters.

“Oh, thank you,” Justin says, turning to look down at Holster. He looks just as bewildered as Justin is at holding a tissue paper square.

“Thank you for the dinosaur book,” Andrew says. “And the mini sticks, they’re super cool.”

“No problem, buddy,” Justin replies, still feeling a little lost.

“Thank you for Rey too, I really love her!” Penny jumps in. She almost knocks Holster over when she suddenly wraps her arms around his neck. “She’s my best favourite!”

“Mine too,” Holster says, gently wrapping his arms around her and patting her on the head. Justin watches Andrew watch the hug, and grins when Andrew looks back at him like he’s contemplating a hug. He doesn’t look super enthused by the idea so Justin offers him a fist, which he happily bumps with his own, even cracking a grin when Justin does a finger wiggle-explosion at the end.

Penny pulls back from Holster, but keeps her hands on Holster’s shoulders so she can look at him seriously. “Okay, now it’s your turn.”

“Uh, what?” Holster asks, looking up at Ransom again. Penny rolls her eyes.

“Open your gifts now,” Andrew fills in, jerking his head at the green package in Justin’s hand. “We need to exchange gifts for it to be a gift exchange.” He sounds a little put out at having to explain the concept of gift exchange to two adults.

“I- seriously?” Justin asks. He looks around and finds that all the kids have team up with the adults and like him and Holster, most of the adults are just as surprised as they are to find the kids holding out gifts with their names on them.

“Yeah! Open it, open it, open it!!! I wrapped and Andrew made them, but I help-ed and Mr. Adam, can I help you?”

Holster sits flat on his ass so Penny can crawl into his lap without knocking them both over, and she chatters away into his ear while he rips into it. Justin sits down too and with a little huff, Andrew joins them on the floor. He points out where the end of the tape is when Justin just keeps turning the package in his hand, touched beyond belief that these kids who don’t have much, have enough in their hearts to want to see other people happy.

Refusing to cry in front of the kids, Justin finds the seam and rips back the tape, opening the envelope to see a knotted string bracelet. He looks over to see that Holster has something similar. He has his wrist out and is letting Penny try to tie it on.

“You made this?” Justin asks Andrew, who nods, blushing slightly. “Oh man, this is super cool Andrew, thank you!”

Andrew looks down at his shoes, though Justin can still see his pleased smile. Justin leans in closer to him.

“Like the coolest thing that Hol- Adam owns probably,” he says, whispering it loud enough that he knows Holster will hear it. He gets kicked in the side for his troubles, but Andrew also laughs out loud and Penny is absolutely delighted at the idea.

“Will you tie it for me?” Justin holds his hand out. Andrew nods and scooches forward, balancing on his knees while he takes both ends and wraps them around Justin’s wrist. He bites his lips while he concentrates, nodding at it once when he’s finished. Justin shakes out it his hand to admire the colourful string. It doesn’t move much; Andrew’s tied it tight enough that it bites into Justin’s skin a little bit.

Honestly though?

It’s the best gift Justin’s ever gotten in an exchange.

**Author's Note:**

> im on [tumblr](http://pongpalace.tumblr.com/post/168119143888/omgcpwinterextravaganza-december-1-gift) if you wanna feed the validation beast and reblog or hangout :)


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